


become like they are

by myeyesarenotblue



Category: Supernatural, The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-17
Updated: 2020-02-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:26:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22768504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myeyesarenotblue/pseuds/myeyesarenotblue
Summary: After finding out about the mysterious wave of spontaneous births all over the world, John decides those miracle children are nothing but trouble- no matter how adorable and human like they might seem.He's going to hunt them down and kill them, if it's the last thing he does.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 77





	1. Is that where babies come from?

**Author's Note:**

> it's a crossover !!!!

The news are unexpected. 

They send a wave of cold dread over John’s shoulders the second he hears them, the second he thinks them over and understands them. Word, by word, by word, they make him shake and cower, make him feel a sort of bone deep desperation and fear he hadn’t felt since the night of the fire. 

He freezes by the door frame, one hand clutching Sammy’s clammy one tight- maybe tighter than he usually does, tighter than he’s ought for a six-year-old; and the other one outstretched awkwardly behind him, barely grazing the doorknob. He freezes. 

He doesn’t dare move a muscle. 

For a second, John forgets all about safety and protocols, forgets about getting in and out of motel rooms as quick as he can, forgets all about keeping his sons safe above anything else. He can’t do anything but stare at the room’s tiny screen, at the blabbering TV. 

He feels like he’s somewhere far away, when Sammy tugs at his hand to be let go, when Dean pushes past him and shuts the door behind him. It feels distant- when they start muttering some nonsense about trying to bake cherry pie using nothing but some crushed cookies and the motel’s microwave. John barely registers it, barely files it away as a problem to deal with later. 

He can’t tear his eyes away from the TV. 

_ “This is unprecedented! Never before seen!” _ The news anchor babbles out, dumbly. It’s not even the usual guy, John notes. It’s some girl that maybe sort of reminds him of Mary, if Mary had had big brown hair and a liking for tacky suits with shoulder pads.  _ “I don’t even know where to begin with this! There are so many questions and not nearly enough answers! Could it all be an elaborate prank?”  _

God, John hopes so. 

John hopes so with all of his being, hopes it’s some sort of hoax, some sort of insanely convincing stupid story some dumb kids decided to make up for shits and giggles and somehow got too out of hand. 

Could it all be an elaborate prank? 

_ “That’s for you to decide” _

John chokes out a pained moan, drags himself closer to the room’s shitty TV and kneels all of two inches away from it, exactly how he keeps telling Sam and Dean not to do. 

_ “As of now,”  _ the girl in the screen keeps saying, a worried frown on her face.  _ “We have reports of twenty-eight births already, along with some other unconfirmed claims. There’s no logical explanation at all. Nothing. Doctors are baffled. Scientists are disgruntled. There’s absolutely no way science can explain what’s happening at the moment. Everything we know to be true could now be-”  _

John fumbles with the TV’s dial, spins it around to change the channel. 

Another news broadcast, another girl, another desk, another tasteless and bland background.  _ “- heard right, folks. The studio managed to get it, just for you”  _ she’s saying, a hint of nervousness in her voice.  _ “We have real footage of one of the births, straight from Seoul, South Korea. Now, I’m being told it might be a bit graphic and not at all ordinary, so viewer discretion is advised”  _ she pauses, thoughtfully. “ _ Here we have it”  _

If John didn’t feel like he’s drowning in fear, he would’ve taken the warning seriously. Maybe would’ve calmly stood up and asked Dean to take Sammy out to the vending machine for a treat. Maybe would’ve turned off the TV and waited patiently until the entire coverage came out on the newspaper. Maybe would’ve called Bobby and asked  _ him  _ to watch the video instead. 

But he does feel like he’s drowning in fear, and he doesn’t do anything at all. 

The screen blacks out, for a second or two. Then it begins. 

It’s a train station. 

John can tell that much. 

It’s a grainy and shitty video, taken from a CCTV camera if the odd angle is anything to go by. It’s a train station. And there, among hordes of people and people and people waiting for their trains, is a woman. He only knows to look at her because whoever forwarded the video to the newscast went out of their leagues to circle her shape with raging red lines. 

For a long while, nothing happens. 

Nothing at all. She just stands there, bouncing idly on her feet, impatient, a curtain of black hair covering most of her face. Nothing happens. But then- 

Then, something happens. 

There’s no audio, but John can almost hear her screaming, with how wide her mouth opens, how terrified her eyes look, how tight she claws at her arms. All at once, she drops to the floor, falls abruptly on her back and  _ screams, screams, screams _ \- 

The hordes of people turn to her, surround her. There’s nothing but random people’s backs on camera, all flailing arms and panicked movements. John can’t see shit. But then someone moves, someone starts pulling people away- maybe in hopes to give the poor girl some space and let her breathe. They move. People move. The girl’s back on the video. John cranes his neck to see, and- 

Dean hitches a breath beside him. 

“Jesus, Dean!” 

Dean’s standing there, clutching the Batman action figure he keeps insisting he’s too old for tight to his chest. He’s staring intently at the screen, a horrified look on his face. “Is that where babies come from?” 

“What-?” John chokes out, spluttering. “Dean, what the hell are you-” 

But Dean’s not even paying attention. He keeps staring at the screen, dumbfounded, maybe even scared. His knuckles look almost white, with how tight he’s holding onto his Batman doll. 

John takes a deep breath. 

He turns his head back towards the TV, slowly. 

The girl’s laying on the floor. She’s kicking, screaming, punching. 

She looks like she’s in pain. Scared. Godawfully scared. John’s only ever seen that brand of scared sported on the faces of people he was too late for, people he couldn’t save and died horrific deaths. The girl looks like that. 

The girl also looks pregnant. 

Very, very pregnant. 

Heavy and round. Bigger than Mary ever got with either Sam or Dean. Bigger than most pregnant women he’s seen walking around. It’s insane- the way her shirt stretches and broadens, the way she keeps screaming and clawing at her stomach. 

She wasn’t pregnant, a second ago. 

John blinks slowly, wills his heartbeat to slow down. 

He stares at the screen, unmoving. He doesn’t dare utter a single word. No noise disturbing the silence. Only the TV’s static and Sammy’s quiet footsteps as he walks around the room’s kitchenette and not so subtly pokes at all the unopened cereal boxes. 

He doesn’t dare move a single muscle. 

He stays quiet, as the girl’s lower half gets blurred out, censored. He stays quiet, as people surround her, help her off her skirt. He stays quiet, as her screaming seems to grow and grow, grow into tears and desperation and defeat. He stays quiet, as- 

“Oh, what the-  _ fuck _ ,  _ shit _ -” 

It turns gory, all of the sudden, and John’s seen plenty of babies kicking their mommas from the inside, but he’s never, absolutely  _ never  _ seen a woman’s belly stretch the way this woman’s belly is stretching, absolutely  _ never- _

It looks like there’s a goddamned monster in there, inside- something big and bulging and violent, desperately trying to claw its way out and be born. It’s like something out of a horror movie. 

Dean chokes out a pained moan beside him, like the sort of noises he’d make late at night during those first few months since everything began. So very young, so very scared. John’s gears finally kick into motion. “Dean,” he barks out, and Dean startles- jumps half a foot and drops his doll. “Go help Sam with his homework” 

Dean nods, a little desperate, looking everywhere but at the screen. John worries, for him. But he can’t tear his eyes away from that little screen, he can’t, he needs to keep looking. 

Sammy speaks up, all cheery and proud, oblivious. “I already did my homework” 

“Oh, yeah? When?” 

“At school!” 

John frowns at him. 

He never knows, with these children, with Sam. Because- he thinks he understands more or less how children are supposed to go at this whole school thing, how they’re supposed to act. They’re supposed to throw a fit and make their parents’ lives a living hell, scream and shout whenever they’re forced to do anything more than the bare minimum- they’re very much not supposed to _ do their homework at school.  _

“Are you sure?” 

Sammy nods. 

Alright then, John thinks, a little hysterically. Alright then, let the kid be a nerd if he so pleases. They’ll see how that works out for him when he’s older. Besides, besides- 

John’s got much more important matters right now. 

The girl on the video keeps twitching and trashing on the dirty floor, screaming her lungs out. There’s blood, all around her. It’s blurred out and darkened and there’s probably more people than he can count blocking all the good bits, but. 

Blood. 

John can see it. Red and shiny and shimmery, far more blood than any birth has any right to have, far more blood than any baby has any right to shed. He doesn’t mind, seeing that blood. But he thinks, he thinks Dean’s finally stopped having nightmares after years and years and years, he thinks Sam’s afraid of the easter bunny and the tooth fairy and the god knows what other ridiculous thing- he thinks, he thinks his boys shouldn’t be watching this much blood. He wants them out of the room. 

Away. 

Out. Out. Out. 

He needs to start making plans, anyway. 

“Here,” John blurts, pulling out his wallet from his back pocket. He takes out a fiver and pushes it into Dean’s skinny fingers. “Go to the arcade. Take your brother” 

“The arcade?” Dean parrots, dumbly. 

“Yeah, there’s- there’s an arcade somewhere around here, right?” 

“I think so,” Dean mutters, making a face. It sounds more like a question. They really haven’t been in this particular town for all that long. “But, Dad-” 

“No,” John says, interrupts harshly. “Go, now” 

He stands up, quick and not as fluid as he’d like, and begins to usher them out of the door. “C’mon, go, you’ve been begging me for weeks” 

“But I’m hungry!” Sammy complains, even though John could’ve sworn he saw the kid gulp down half a box of Lucky Charms not two seconds ago. He’s a menace. John goes to take more money out of his wallet, finds nothing but a ten. It’s a ridiculous amount of money for a single meal. He gives it to Dean too, anyway. 

“Buy food. Pizza. Ice cream. Whatever you want, I don’t care” 

Dean doesn’t say a peep, but John can see that giant question mark on his face. He sighs, “Just come back before it gets dark, alright? Have fun” 

Dean nods, and Sam nods, and John shuts the door on their faces. 

He feels a speckle of guilt, somewhere in there, for sending his sons away and alone. But they’ll manage, he thinks. It’s not like they’re going to hate going to the arcade and eating junk. He knows them. He knows them. 

He takes a deep breath. Turns on his heel and faces that dreaded TV. 

Spontaneous pregnancy. Like Jesus, but worse. A swollen belly that bulges maybe a little too violently for a human baby. An awful lot of blood. 

John turns back towards the screen just in time to catch a random somebody pull a wailing child out from between the woman’s legs. It’s chubby and cute, all tiny fingers and scrunched up face. It’s cute, it’s a baby, it’s awfully cute, but it’s not- 

It has tentacles. 

_ Tentacles.  _


	2. Where?

John turns off the TV, mutely, dazedly. 

He stands up, thanks the heavens he actually thought to ask for a room with a phone this one time, and walks towards it as calm and steady as he possibly can. He takes a deep breath, counts to ten. 

Then it’s just a matter of dialing the right numbers, and waiting. 

“What do you want? I’m busy” 

“Hey, Bobby” 

A beat. 

John waits for Bobby to recognize his voice. Chews his bottom lip. 

Finally, finally, Bobby huffs out, all scruffy and exasperated, the way he always does whenever he’s stressed out about this or that. “You saw that shitshow in the news, didn’t you?” 

“I did” 

* 

Bobby explains, through gritted teeth, worn but somehow not afraid, that there are just far too many things with tentacles. It’s gonna be hell to narrow it down, he says, it’s gonna be hell because there’s the Kraken, and there’s the Akkorokamui, and the Kassogtha, and the Shub-Niggurath, and the Kanaloa, and the Arwassa, and the Cecaelia, and the Shoggoth, and the Cyäegha- 

John gets it. 

There are many, many things with tentacles. John gets it. 

But turns out nothing quite fits the bill. The Arwassa, the Kanaloa, and the Cyäegha are all meant to be gods, singular. No rebirthing of any kind. Shoggoths are supposed to have far more eyes than the kid in the video had, as far as they could tell. Shub-Nigguraths have goat legs. Krakens are just- _no._

The closest thing might just be the Cecaelia, except that their tentacles come out from all the wrong places. And the kid did have legs, too. Tiny toes and nails. 

“I don’t know what to tell you, John” 

Bobby sighs and groans and John can hear him shifting, moving around. 

He lets him. He breathes in, breathes out. “And what about the- the births? All Cecaelias are born like that? ‘Cause it’s the first time I hear about spontaneous pregnancies” 

“What?” Bobby mutters, clearly distracted by whatever he’s doing. 

“The births, Bob. Are Cecaelias born from humans?” 

“Oh. No, they’re born from eggs” 

_ “What?” _

Bobby doesn’t even reply. 

“How the fuck-” John stutters, thinks over his words. “Bobby, if those things are born from eggs, how the fuck did it ever occur to you that these children are Cecaelias?” 

“Oh, I don’t know, John” Bobby replies, maybe a little angry, forceful “I guess I don’t have much to go by except for a grainy video of a  _ goddamned newborn mauling people to death with his tentacles.  _ That screams sea monster to me, egg or no egg” 

John groans. Bangs his head against the wall exactly once. 

The kid’s not a Cecaelia. 

He just knows. Call it a gut feeling but- he figures such violent and spontaneous pregnancies... 

Surely someone would've noticed, if this had happened before. There’d be records, news reports, some sort of evidence, something left behind in the lore- so, no. Not a Cecaelia. This is something different. Something new. Something never seen before. John knows. 

Bobby makes a noise, between a gasp and a whimper. John straightens up, holds the phone tighter to his ear. “What?” 

“There’s one in the middle of nowhere, Mexico whose momma claims- and I’m quoting, ‘ _ hasn’t taken a single breath since he was born’ _ ” 

“Stillborn?” 

“No, John- he's- the kid’s alive. He’s just not breathing” 

That- 

That changes things. 

John bangs his head against the wall, again. Hard. “The one in Seoul did breathe, right? The reports didn’t say anything about his breathing?” 

“John, there’s more- there's-” Bobby’s voice wavers. It’s- Bobby’s voice never wavers. “There’s a little boy in Worcestershire that broke a paramedic’s arm when they tried to check him over. Another one in Jakarta, born with ‘ _ Cat like yellow eyes. No pupil’.  _ Then there’s a girl- Russian, family says everything glass shattered the second she started crying” 

“What are you saying?” 

“I’m saying each kid has a different ability, John. They’re not-” he pauses, breathes out something shaky and maybe a little scared. “I have no fucking clue what they are” 

John groans, “This is giving me a headache,” he announces, pinching the bridge of his nose. “If we don’t find out what they are fast enough to-” 

The doorknob rattles. 

John drops the phone, pulls out his Glock and aims, no hesitation. He feels his heartbeat going crazy, his mind going a mile a minute, but it’s just- 

“Dean, I thought I told you until it got dark” 

Dean blinks up at him, all innocently. “Yeah, I know, but-” 

“But what?” 

Dean doesn’t reply. But he does a weird full body twitch, sort of aiming backwards with his head. And John sees, he tracks Dean’s eyes until his gaze lands on Sammy, all pouting and sad. 

John drops the gun, sighs, “What happened?” 

But he knows what happened, already. Sam’s jeans are torn at the knee, his scraped skin visible through the hole. The kid’s two seconds from bursting into tears, he can just tell. 

This- 

This is exactly why he always leaves Sam and Dean alone when he’s going on a hunt. 

He huffs out something frustrated, picks the phone back up from the floor. “I’ll call you later” 

* 

Sam and Dean more or less refuse to go out by themselves for the next couple days after that. 

John resigns himself to only working when they’re away at school. 

* 

The following weeks are a blur of gathering all the information he possibly can while crammed up in the sad little town they were staying at. It’s- 

Not much. 

Nothing, actually. It’s close to nothing. 

But Bobby makes some solid points, and by the fifth time he calls and very nearly talks his ear off threatening to kick him in the balls if he doesn’t stay put until they have something to go on, John more or less gets what he’s saying. 

If they don’t know how to kill the things and decide to face them just like that, then they could be in deep shit. They could get easily mauled to death by a six-pound speck of a thing for all they know, like the people in the video, because sure, silver blades and holy water usually do the trick with pretty much anything, but they can’t be actually _ sure  _ if they don’t know exactly what they’re facing. 

They’d be idiots, looking for nothing but trouble. 

John’s never been the smartest man. 

He- 

He packs his bags. 

He packs Sam and Dean’s, too. 

He does so in those tricky hours where he's not all that sure if it’s too late or too early, just that everything is dark and miserable, and he does so while Sam and Dean are asleep, out to the world. 

He doesn’t actually have a real motive, other than a wild urge to rid the world of those freak babies, all rationality be damned. The thought of going in blind does make him a little nervous, but- he’ll figure something out when he gets to it, he always does. 

Because he truly cannot stand another single second of cramming up in the shitty town’s shitty library reading about sea monsters. He’s gonna go crazy, waiting for Bobby to call, only for Bobby to keep saying he’s got nothing. 

Nothing at all. 

Nothing but some maybes, and nothing but some if onlys, that are frustrating as hell because one second he thinks he’s got it already, he knows what they are  _ (“They’re demons, Bobby, actual fucking demons!” “John, are you stupid?”),  _ one second he thinks he knows, and the next- 

The next, another kid shows up in their radars, but this one’s supposed to make time stop, and demons can’t exactly stop time, can they? And what about that one other kid- the one in Peru? The one that goes invisible and may or may not be able to set things on fire at will? There's no creature on earth that can do that, much less a demon. 

John’s gonna go crazy. 

He shakes Dean awake, as gently as he dares to. 

Dean blinks up at him, sleepy and bleary-eyed, but up and alert in the span of a second, just like he’s taught him. “Dad?” John stays quiet, watches him rub the sleep from his eyes, watches him as he notices and takes in their duffels, all packed up and ready. “We’re moving?” 

John nods, tells himself it’s not such a big deal if Sam and Dean switch schools for the third time this year, “I have work to do,” he says, after a moment, voice firm. “A job” 

Dean frowns, very obviously disappointed. It lasts for a second, his face a careful mask, after. 

John’s still not sure whether or not he regrets telling him about the supernatural. 

“Where?” 

“I don’t know” 

* 

Sammy doesn’t budge, no matter how much they shake him or how many sweets they promise him, so John does the smart thing and decides to pick him up and load him into the car, no matter if he’s getting a little too heavy for that. 

He doesn’t actually have a destination in mind. 

He decides to drive south. 

* 

He calls Bobby from every gas station he stops by. 

Bobby says he has nothing every time. 

John still calls, though. 

* 

It’s a little over a week into their little road trip, that John sees it. 

He’s halfway into the process of begrudgingly admitting to himself that maybe, just  _ maybe _ , crossing over the border to Mexico with an arsenal in his trunk just to murder what the stupid, idiotic civvies are beginning to accept as a random human baby may or may not be the best idea, when Sammy groans, from the backseat. 

“I want to pee,” he announces solemnly. 

John glares at him, through the impala’s mirror. “You wanted to pee half an hour ago,” he deadpans, clenching his jaw. “We stopped” 

Sammy blinks, all innocently. “Well, I want to pee again” 

And so the kid wants to pee. 

John makes him hold it for another mile or so, because he knows there’s a gas station up ahead and he’d just rather not play that frightening game called ‘ _ will or will not Sam refuse to pee on a bush for hours at a time until he literally can’t hold it anymore’ _ , and besides, he needs a smoke, he thinks, just the one. 

The gas station is shit, of course, as they usually are- but it’s got a bathroom, and a crappy little convenience store tucked in one corner. 

He walks out of the car, stretches his arms above his head. 

Sam and Dean pile out, and Sam’s doing that little dance he does, mostly for show, he thinks, whenever he wants both to go to the bathroom and get on John’s nerves. 

John sighs, “Dean, take him to the bathroom, would’ya?” 

“But why-?” Dean whines, huffing, undignified. “He can pee by himself” 

_ Can he? _ John thinks, hysterically. 

A thousand messy toilets flash before his eyes. 

_ Can he?  _

“Just take him” 

Dean rolls his eyes in that way that just screams about a teenage rebellion waiting to happen, but he does end up, after making a show of pouting and sighing, grabbing Sammy’s wrist and tugging him towards the sad little room with a bathroom sign next to its doorway. 

John watches them go, pinching the bridge of his nose- he feels a hell of a headache coming, and he swears it’s those boys’ fault. 

He walks up to the convenience store, notes how it seems to be some off brand Seven-Eleven with the exact same name and logo but a different color scheme and some fun items that an actual Seven-Eleven would definitely never sell if they ever want children coming inside. 

It’s whatever. 

He buys his smokes, throws the whole box out save for one lone cigarette- he hates smoking, but sometimes he gets the urge. 

He walks around the place, idly, bored, waiting for Sam and Dean to be done and show up. Near the register, there’s a newspaper rack. John almost ignores it, almost doesn’t pick one up. The news are news anywhere, aren’t they? Bobby’s been keeping him on the loop. 

But he’s bored, and Sam and Dean are taking too long, and he’s not suicidal enough to light up his cigarette in the middle of a goddamned gas station. 

So he walks up to it. 

Picks up a single paper. 

The front page is a story about that filthy rich old fuck that’s been trying to collect the miracle babies for his own personal freak show. John doesn’t even bother reading it. That guy gives him a crazy bad gut feeling, and he can only be thankful that as far he and Bobby can tell, he’s only managed to get one of the kids. Worcestershire. The one that’s strong. 

It’s whatever. 

John skips the story, flips the pages. 

For a moment, he thinks there’s nothing, just the same old boring news he seems to read about every day, the same crap Bobby’s been feeding him, but then, a tiny little scribble near in one of the last couple pages of the thing- 

_ ‘Birmingham mother attempts to abandon newborn, claims it’s one of the miracle babies’ _

And now that’s interesting. 

Birmingham means somewhere in the country, means no unnecessary traveling, no risky attempts at crossing over his weapons, means the possibility of back up if it were to come to that- 

John doesn’t even bother paying. 

He snags the newspaper, runs over to the impala, and  _ reads. _

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr @myeyesarenotblue


End file.
